Colette
My Literary Mother
Published on 8. August 2024
Book
Hardback
160 pages
978-0-19-285821-4 (ISBN)
Description
The power of Colette's work comes from its modernist storytelling.
Colette was a pioneering, ground-breaking modernist writer, but has not always had her originality and worth recognized in Britain. Her work provocatively uses unstable narratives, gaps, silences, fairytale, mythical tropes, and sensual evocations of childhood, sex, and landscapes.
In this book, Michele Roberts examines how Colette invents new forms to express her unsettling content on desire, perversion, ageing, and different forms of love. Delving into four keys texts, Roberts explores Colette's willingness to break open taboos about older woman and desire, as well as hidden and forbidden aspects of human longings and pleasures.
Through these re-readings, Roberts discovers that Colette's work is even more entrancing, more disturbing, and more original than she first thought.
Colette was a pioneering, ground-breaking modernist writer, but has not always had her originality and worth recognized in Britain. Her work provocatively uses unstable narratives, gaps, silences, fairytale, mythical tropes, and sensual evocations of childhood, sex, and landscapes.
In this book, Michele Roberts examines how Colette invents new forms to express her unsettling content on desire, perversion, ageing, and different forms of love. Delving into four keys texts, Roberts explores Colette's willingness to break open taboos about older woman and desire, as well as hidden and forbidden aspects of human longings and pleasures.
Through these re-readings, Roberts discovers that Colette's work is even more entrancing, more disturbing, and more original than she first thought.
Reviews / Votes
This is critical thinking that is intimate, enchanting, and necessary. * Deborah Levy * I adored lingering over this book. Michele Roberts is a delightful guide to Colette, reminding us of the pleasures of reading and re-reading a beloved author, attempting to understand how she manages to be so beguiling. Devotees and neophytes alike will find much to treasure here. * Lauren Elkin, Author and translator * Roberts offers intimate reflections about her connection to Colette. * Kirkus * Insightful close readings inform a fervent homage. * Kirkus * This reader wanted to remain in the rich night of the book, and for day not to break the spell * Alice Blackhurst, The TLS *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 220 mm
Width: 141 mm
Thickness: 17 mm
Weight
316 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-285821-4 (9780192858214)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
approx. 08/2026
Oxford University Press
€16.50
Not yet published
Person
Michele Roberts has published fifteen novels and her most recent is Cut Out (2021). Her novel Daughters of the House (1993) won the W.H. Smith Literary Award and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. She has published three collections of short stories and eight of poetry, as well as two memoirs and one collection of essays, Food, Sex & God: on Inspiration and Writing (1998). With the artist Caroline Isgar, she has published four artist's books. She has written two plays, both of which were performed, and one short film for Channel 4.
Content
Introduction: Re-Reading Colette
1: Mother-House
2: Mother Remembered
3: Mother Re-Found and Rejected
4: Unmothered Untethered
1: Mother-House
2: Mother Remembered
3: Mother Re-Found and Rejected
4: Unmothered Untethered